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Erica Jacobs
Education ExaminerErica Jacobs is the Education columnist for the DC Examiner, and has taught high school and college for 33 years. She has been around the education block! Email her at ejacob1@gmu.edu.
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Showing entries for Category: george-mason-university
Is Education Wasted on the Young?
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by Erica Jacobs, Education Examiner
My education column today in the D.C. Examiner comments on a lecture a world renowned James Joyce scholar gave to my students at Oakton High School last week. I have known Coilin Owens for years--he is Professor Emeritus at George Mason University--but this lecture was not just about Joyce and Dubliners: he modeled how gratifying a lifetime passion can be, and he linked Joyce's cryptic "signs" in his works (which have generated much debate among scholars) to the "signs" we see everywhere in our lives. If we can "read" them correctly, the secrets to life will be revealed.
I thought his lecture was brilliant, and many of my students were impressed. But the majority of my seniors are not much interested in the life of the mind right now. They are generally thinking about graduation, and what a drag it is to have to go to school these last weeks. A couple even pretended to go to the lecture, and instead went elsewhere---I don't even want to know where! In other words, they were just being teenagers.
This doesn't surprise or alarm me, but Prof. Owens' words had a profound effect on me, and I wish all my students could hear him with my ears, not seniors' "deaf ears." I hold out hope that one day, in the future, they will study Joyce or someone else whose words need careful study and interpretation, and make a connection with their own lives and the necessity to look beneath the surface. They might not even know where they picked up the idea, but perhaps Coilin Owens' words reside in the back of their minds.
Topics: james joyce , george mason university
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